April 16/07 8:11 am - Tour de Georgia Stage 1 Report & Full Results

About halfway into the 98.5 mile Stage 1 of the Tour de Georgia, HealthNet's Doug Ollerenshaw and four others caught the day's early breakaway, Navigators' big Belarusian Viktor Rapinski. Contrary to the usual turn of events, the group of five managed to stay away until the circuits in downtown Macon, although Rapinski later paid for his efforts by being absorbed by the charging peloton. Ollerenshaw held on for second place behind Tinkoff's Daniele Contrini, with HealthNet's Ryder Hesjedal winning the field sprint for 4th.

When I caught up to the HealthNet guys after the stage, Hesjedal was toweling his face off. Since I usually work for TV, the medium in which the camera doesn't lie, I commented to Ryder that when an interview is for a website it doesn't matter what you look like. Teammate Rory Sutherland begged to differ and told me, "It ONLY matters what you look like." I tried to explain that it doesn't matter if your face is all sweaty but again the Aussie objected, "We don't sweat."

So I had to ask Ryder, did you sweat today?

"Ah, a little bit, it was actually pretty hot there, made the race. It was good, nice, a little windy, made the race a little harder than it could have been. Yeah, that was a good move for us, with Doug out there, almost getting a win... I had a little go at the end there to get the rest of the group so that was ok."

Did you think Doug and the group would stay away? Usually the peloton manages to time it perfectly and catch the break with a K to go.

"No, it was the way it went. Conditions were in favour for the break, they were going just as fast as the peloton for quite a while and the stage was fairly short considering the speed and they just had enough time so for us it was ok."

For Contrini he's got a decent amount of time for the overall, it that something you guys think about?

"There are some pretty hard days, there's lots of minutes to be given and lost - it's only Day One."

Versus had CBC's coverage of Canucks-Stars game 3 on last night, did you stay awake to watch overtime?

"No, no, I gotta focus on my Game. If they get into the Finals I'm sure I'll watch it."